Often times we put too much focus on the negative parts of our day or even the mundane tasks of the day. I, myself, may put too much focus on being a taxi driver for kids. Or if I am substitute teaching maybe I will focus on how many times by 9:30 am I have already said, “Alright class….”. If you have an infant you might be discussing with a close friend or family member about your lack of sleep. If you are taking care of an elderly parent you may be exhausted from cleaning up after her since she refuses to wear Depends. If you are a basketball official you may tired of parents, coaches, and/or players feeling they know more than you and could officiate better than you. Whatever it is, we all face challenges. We all feel frustration. No matter our age we all experience frustration. However, the question is what do you do about it?
I talked about being busy in an earlier post. Many of us will complain about how busy we are. We will start to feel frustrated because maybe a family member, friend, or coworker does not seem to care about how busy we are. But so many of us will stay in the frustration, we will not delegate tasks, we will not truly evaluate whether it all needs to be done. Why….because that feeling of frustration and busyness is familiar to us. Instead of improving the situation we focus on it because it is familiar. So I ask you friends are you creating frustration? Are you creating the frustration because we are creatures of habit and even though we complain about the busyness it makes us feel safe. Many of us do not like change so we stay with the familiarity of frustration and busyness.
I want you to challenge yourself to confuse people. What do I mean by that? I read a devotion this week about a woman who was helping her husband take care of his aging father while working from home and raising five children. Elise Hurd wrote, “Help me confuse people. No matter what my circumstances are, no matter what my feelings are. Lord, please fill me so full with joy and peace that people have to question the Source. It certainly isn’t me. Life isn’t about me. I don’t want it to be about me. I no longer want my life to make sense to people. I want to confuse people.”
Put your focus on receiving favor and not living in the frustration. Put you focus on confusing others. Confuse others that when they look at you they do not have an understanding of how with everything you have going on in life, that you still wear a smile on your face. Confuse others by them not understanding where your energy comes from. Confuse others by them not understanding where your hope comes from. Leave the land of frustration and busyness. Leave the land of familiarity and find your true peace and hope.